The next argument Craig presents in Reasonable Faith (after his versions of the cosmological argument) is the fine-tuning argument, which is a version of the argument from design or teleological argument. I’ve previously discussed problems with other versions of this argument here and here, those posts will be useful background to this one. Craig’s version is a [Read More...]

These aren’t in Reasonable Faith, but there are two lines Craig uses constantly in his debates that are worth noting. Both are generally used as part of the Kalam argument, but have nothing to do with it logically. The first is his frequent use of the rhetorical question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (see, for example, his [Read More...]

It seems like in the first couple years of my blogging, atheist and Christian blogs interacted a lot more. I suspect this was in part the result of a self-reinforcing trend, where the less someone interacts with you, the less they seem interacting with. Yet there’s no doubt a lot to gain from that interaction. [Read More...]

I’ve just written a post at LessWrong covering some basics of neuroscience and criticizing a claim by Eliezer Yudkowsky that the brain “just doesn’t really look all that complicated.” If you just want to read the latter part of the post, I’ve put my criticisms below the fold on this one: [Read more...]

I’m in the process of turning several recent blog posts into another chapter of The Book. The chapter is titled, simply, “There are no good arguments for the existence of God.” It’s only about half-finished, but I’m very eager for feedback on how the parts (which were generally well-received here) are fitting together into a [Read More...]

I believe the bad reasoning found in O’Reilly’s argument for the existence of God is just one example of a more general problem that is very common in arguments for the existence of God, including ones made by professional philosophers of religion. It’s related to the problems discussed in chapter 4, but it’s a little [Read More...]

I recently saw a discussion thread at LessWrong where the OP claimed, “I have stopped recommending Dawkin’s work to people who are on the fence about religion. The God Delusion utterly destroyed his effectiveness at convincing people against religion.” This got me thinking: what books do you recommend to get someone out of religion? Here [Read More...]